Wooting one FAQ

Last updated: 6 December, 2018

Q: Can I use the Wooting keyboard as a normal keyboard?

A: Every key on a Wooting keyboard is both a normal keyboard (digital input) and an analog input keyboard at the same time. There’s always 1 dedicated profile on a Wooting keyboard that’s solely a normal (digital) keyboard. You can quickly switch between the dedicated digital profile and other profiles with the “Mode” key.

Q: Are all keys Analog?

A: Yes, all keys on a Wooting keyboard have analog input and are configurable. The analog range is from 1.5 to 3.6mm.

Q: Can I change the actuation point?

A: Yes, you can change the actuation point anywhere between the 1.5 to 3.6mm.

Q: Does the Analog input work with all games?

A: Most games that support Xinput (Xbox controller) or Directinput (Generic controller) will also support analog input. However, some games such as Destiny, Assassin’s creed and Rainbow Six do not allow the use of 2 input devices (Keyboard, mouse and controller) at the same time.

Games that support the Wooting Analog SDK, natively support keyboard analog input.

Q: Is there a list of supported games?

A: Yes! However it relies on the community to update it. We are still working on a better solution.

A: The Wooting one is our Tenkeyless (TKL / 80%) layout keyboard and the Wooting two is our Full-sized (FS / 100%) layout keyboard. The Wooting two uses USB type C to a regular USB-A connector and has a few minor design differences.

Q: What switch type should I use?

A: it’s down to personal preference. You can test the popular CherryMX switches to get an idea what to expect from a Red, Blue or Black type switch. We recommend the Red and Black switch for the smoothest analog gaming experience. If you’re not too concerned about the analog input for gaming, we recommend Blue switches for satisfying “clicky” typing. Learn more…

Q: Can I buy Flaretech switches on their own?

A: The Flaretech switches are available for purchase on the Wooting official store. As of writing, they are in pre-order and come at a better price when purchased together with the Wooting two. Expected to deliver in November-December, 2018.

Q: Can I clean my Wooting keyboard?

A: Wooting keyboards are designed to easily take apart for cleaning, customizing and fixing. You don’t lose your warranty if you take the keyboard apart. We recommend you to follow our guide before taking apart the keyboard.

Q: How loud is a Wooting keyboard?

A: The Wooting one isn’t a silent keyboard, it’s still a mechanical keyboard. There are several DIY methods done by the community to silence the Wooting one. The Wooting two has a slightly more silent sound signature than the Wooting one.

Q: What place is safest to buy a Wooting from?

A: We will always support customers if they run into problems, regardless where it was bought, but we suggest buying directly from us on our official store for the best support and communication.

Q: Is the Wooting open source?

A: We intend to share and open-source everything we do whenever it makes sense in the big picture. Therefore, the Wooting developer portal is an open-source RGB and Analog SDK. This allows hobbyists and programmers to make their own applications or add compatibility to analog input.

Have more questions, feel free to ask on our Discord or email us to social@wooting.io.

Look at the first gen Logitech G15 with its macro keys and the little screen. There is nothing like that on the market nowadays and it sold like crazy back in the day. If you can add a numpad, some macro keys and a dedicated LCD screen with media controls that would make this ‘the’ keyboard to get.

Some wonderful ideas I’m seeing here, and thankfully most of my questions have already been asked by others. However.

1) While the idea of a detachable cable is awesome (indeed, all too rare these days), is there any particular reason you went with a Micro-USB Connector? The full-sized USB-B connector is still widely used by printers and scanners, if slightly harder to track down at Brick-and-Mortar stores. Admittedly a personal gripe, but I’ve been burned by enough cheep cables breaking off inside devices that said connector is pretty permanently associated with hours of headaches in my mind.

2) Although support will obviously vary from program to program, how good is the One’s cross-platform support likely to be at launch? I know such support is planned, I guess I’m mostly wondering how much of the requisite work is part of the keyboard itself vs. OS-specific computer-side drivers/libraries/software.

3) Is the One going to require any annoying, laggy, breaks-at-the-drop-of-a-pin computer-side software for its analog features, such as how certain other brands I could mention do for their macro keys?

In fairness, they’re usually not THAT bad, just frustratingly prone to not working as expected. And then having bug reports for major problems closed as “Working as Intended.”

4) Although I do like the compact size (especially for portability – laptop keyboards SUCK), I can think of more that a few cases where a numpad would be helpful in the field, not to mention at home/work. I can think of two solutions for this….

a) The obvious, make a full-length keyboard.
b) Have a standalone numpad unit. While requiring yet another USB port and likely being more expensive, it would afford more flexibility in desk layout, and I can think of more than a few cases where a numpad by itself may actually be a better option (laptops, accountants, etc.).

5) While obviously a stretch goal, have you considered making Bluetooth and/or Ergonomic versions of the One? Although uncommon for gaming, they’d go a long way towards your ideal of analog keys as an industry standard. You could probably work around the cost somewhat by making a batch every time enough orders are reached, rather than sitting on as-yet-unsold inventory as you would for your main product.

Cool-cool more questions are always welcome.
1) We went for micro-usb because the connector lasts longer than from mini-usb. The component that usually breaks after a while is inside the cable instead of the connector with micro -usb. Exactly for the reason you just mentioned, we didn’t choose full USB.

2) It will always work cross-plaform for all the normal keyboard functionality (all the same protocol), but with the analog keys, we will try to make as much as possible functionality available. For the moment, especially for gaming, we use existing drivers for instant implementations, not all OS support the same type of drivers.

3) It’s not a requirement, but the PC side software will help make it easier to make adjustments inside the keyboard. Then you can even plug it into any other PC without the software, and still have the same functionality with adjustments you’ve made. We’re familiar with the heavy-loaded software out there, let me just say, we like no-nonsense things.

4) We’ve been getting alot of requests for numpad and we like to listen:) So, we’re already making plans how we’re going to implement it. (full-sized keyboard)

5) Because we’re aimed at gamers, bluetooth is a no-go by most. It’s something to consider and even though we recognize that gamers are the same people that want to use the keyboard outside gaming for like office application, we don’t have bluetooth on our radar. If the gaming community pushes for it and would love to see the implementation, then this story changes of course.

First of all, looks great so far. I’ve been thinking about a keyboard which registers the pressure of the key press and not only the I/O state for several years now, and I’m glad, it looks like the time has come now! 🙂
Though I always thought about variable resistors or something like that, optical sensors never came to my mind; but there are several ways to skin a – ummm,.. – a cable, I guess 🙂

Else, I agree with ‘sups’ points.

Going down those points from my perspective:
1) I hate the micro-USB standard for the same reason as ‘sups. Spent so much money, time and nerves because those freaking cables break that easily. Granted, if it’s plugged in like on the Wooting One, there isn’t as much stress as on a phone while it’s charging and you want to watch a video or something. Though I’d like to see another connector too like USB C (if you want to be that fancy), or USB B or ANY other connector (I hate them really D:), or even a fixed cable.

2,3) As long you can set any custom makros and it’ll run as a regular keyboard in the worst scenario, I’m fine with any software or anything – and storing your settings on the keyboard would be a nice feature, but nothing I’d really need.

FOUR) – and the reason why I’m actually writing this post and the reason why I haven’t pre-ordered anything yet – a numpad is a must!
Do it, be it a full size keyboard, be it a fancy magnetic, clip on thing, you can use from the keyboard separately, which – if it really has to be – uses also another USB port (yet only if you can’t find any way to connect it with the keyboard itself) and as long as it suits to the keyboard and doesn’t stand out in any way fine. In addition to that, and another thing I personally look for, are media keys, or at least easy accessible volume keys – I fancy the K70’s volume wheel – something like that, which you could put on the top of the numpad – 2 birds! 😀

5) see, that’s for me kinda weird. Why have a detachable cable (you might forget somewhere, when you need your keyboard somewhere else), when you can’t use it without cable?! I mean, there must be a way to put a bluetooth dongle in the keyboard, and use it wirelessly if you so prefer, and you’re not game full hardcore competitively atm. But when you do, plug this everything-other-than-a-micro-USB cable in, and shots get fired and pixels are bleeding and all that fun stuff!

Either way, I’m sure you’ll do a great work and mayhaps, someday my love to numpad and volume keys and my hate towards micro-USB settles down – or maybe my prayers will be answered ^^ – and I order the +++ out of your online store, but until then – best of luck and success and in general all the best!

You know that the steam controller struggles with the same problems as your keyboard when it comes to input using controller, mouse and keyboard simultaneously.
Maybe you could work with valve when making this “platform” for so many analog inputs.

We’ve seen this topic going on the internet and we’re also happy that you point it out. I think it’s an excellent idea to reach out to Valve and we were talking about it just a couple of days ago. We’ve decided to first get our things a bit more out there first, so we can also share a clear picture, without too much hassle, to valve.

It will function as a normal keyboard on Mac, but we can’t make any promises about analog unless mac supports x-input, which we believe it doesn’t, meaning it will have to wait for our own driver. There are also other applications outside of gaming that might be available on Mac though.

This is obviously a niche use case, but I don’t want to give up my numpad. While the primary purpose of my PC is gaming, it is far from its only purpose. I hope they offer a full version fairly quickly.

That brings me to my main concern, the lack of keys

That to me comes across as a big problem and in a bit of conflict to where the price likely will be given the statement.. I don’t want a few special keys, I want a keyboard that has the same usability no matter the key. So if making all the keys like this really raises up the price that much, is their “mid range price point” perhaps a bit misleading?

I’m very interested in trying this, despite the flaws I am pointing out. Now the big ? is going to be the price. I don’t mind having a slightly limited keyboard for the added functionality if the price is right. Right around $100 is starting to push it for me without a num pad. Much more than that and it is quickly going to turn into a flat no. However an entire keyboard with this functionality and a num pad would very easily push me into a $150-$200 price point. I have around $130 tied up in my current keyboard which is a very nice full mechanical. So am I willing to pay a price premium for the added functionality? Most certainly yes. How much however directly depends on how much functionality.

Thanks for sharing your opinion. I would agree with you that you wouldn’ t want to spend a lot of money of a few special keys, and that’s also why we’re really pushing to make the entire keyboard analog without incurring increasing cost. We have some promising ideas but it’s too soon to tell. That’s also one of the reasons why we’ve not settled on a price yet.

As far as the numpad goes, the reason why we were a bit hesitant is because there is additional “tooling” cost for making another version keyboard. It’s a cost we can’t cover without additional support. Seeing that there is quite a demand for it, we do want to have one, so we’re hoping the crowdfunding can help with that.

I’m sorry to hear this but I totally understand where you’re coming from. Since the beginning of the project we’ve been making a TKL version for several reasons, one of them being to keep the launch keyboard affordable. We’ve not ignored full-size but when we make it, we’ll want to make sure it’s real good, affordable and not a simple/hasty implementation.

The Wooting one is Full-Analog (all keys) and also Full RGB. It’s just that we couldn’t implement individual key RGB control at this moment for technical reasons and instead divided it into key clusters.

If you support us, even if it’s in the smallest or simplest way, that would already make our day because we’re in it for the long-run and want to build more analog gaming devices.

I absolutely agree with Robert. There needs to be a numpad version but also a 60% mini version. That would allow for more desk space and for me a keyboard like this is sufficient. You stated that you don’t want a christmas tree bling-bling keyboard. Well I do! And many other people share my opinion. Full RGB lighting with special effects is extremely useful for an indication of your actions just like tactile feedback, it also creates a cool atmosphere. For me media keys (even a volume scrolling component) are a must. That would make it a high price keyboard but considering its high end tech, it would be worth it.

For full-size version we will most definitely do so :p. Actually for the Wooting one you can change the entire Ins, Home, PgUp, Del, End and Pgdn cluster into dedicated media keys. Just toggle the FN mode. Meaning you won’t have to press FN+home to pause music, you can just press home and it pauses.

Hi there!
The keyboard looks very nice and i think not only for gamers.
But my biggest problem now is that the layout looks not nice for german keys. Especially with this wide left shift (german keys have ” key right beside left shift). And my personal “wanna have” – large ‘Enter’ and ‘Backspace’ keys.
Is there a hope you will be sometime so far and make really different layouts( f.Ex. with bigger Enter)

Would it be possible to make a cheaper version with only movement keys analogue? I’m not sure I see a point in having even the modifier keys analogue – they usually toggle running, crouching, or boosting, etc.

For me even $100 would be too much for a keyboard, no matter how alien it is. Here (Romania), it would even be more expensive than the reference price anyway.

For what it’s worth, I also vote for a full version with numpad. I only use it when I type in numbers (such as when using a calculator or in Excel formulas or when programming), so rarely compared to other keys, but it’s way faster than using the top number keys.

Other things that I care about in a keyboard – 1cm margins so that I don’t press keys when I grab it, keys that are not pressed too easily, noise, large return key, and, at this price, ergonomic design is a must, and so is a palm rest,

What I don’t care about – media keys, right “Windows”, right Shift, and context menu keys, color customization,

It would be nice if movement keys (and maybe Esc and Enter) were red to stand out.

I’m very excited about your project. I absolutely must have a keyboard with analogue movement keys, but I’m not ready to spend this much on a keyboard and I expect it to be ergonomic, silent, and have a numpad.

Thanks for the feedback. I want to add some narrative for why we went this way. Hopefully in the future, we will have a version to your liking.

1. It’s possible to make it and we almost stuck with it but, in the end, we found a way to make the entire keyboard analog opposed to a couple of keys without increasing the cost by an impossible amount.

We’d like to stay ahead and make the Wooting one as advanced as possible, without holding back on things. Full analog has more benefits than you’d thing and further down the road it will increase.

For example with full analog: You can change the actuation point of the entire keyboard and/or every single key (latter not supported at launch (yet)), you can map the control buttons anywhere on the keyboard, change it in an entire MIDI controller, when API is introduced it can start reading you typing profile then developers can support more complex functions such as automatically recognize when you want to write capital, correct typical mistakes you make during typing and more.

2. I’m sorry for the lack of availability in Romania.

3. Numpad is indeed faster for this purpose, request noted.

4. Not sure what you mean with 1cm margin? there’s 4mm travel and it can function as a regular keyboard as well (actuate at 2mm, digital input). The layout you’re referring to is called ISO, we also deliver it in ISO.

Noise is very keyboard and switch dependent but in general mechanical keyboards are louder than membrane.

The keyboard has an ergonomic design if you look at its height and expectations of TKL but we couldn’t go for a split or half split version, it’s too tailored and isn’t interesting for our audience.

The palm rest, we tried to fit it in but we couldn’t find a good solution for it and making our own would increase the total price. If there’s enough demand, we might make a specific one for it.

5. The WASD have a separate RGB lighting, indicating the default movement keys.

6. Thank you 🙂 Hopefully the above gave a bit more insight but your feedback is already awesome to receive!

I love the keyboard expect since it doesn’t have a ten-key I could never use one. I’m a lefty so I game using the arrow and ten keys. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make a tenkey version. I would even pay extra for a custom board if I had to!

Hi,
I have just received the keyboard I ordered last year. It looks wonderful, What I can not find is any developers api. I would like to read the analog values from the keys programmatically in order to use it in my application. I am sure it must be possible. Is there any downloadable api version for java or c or whatever?

Please contact Jeroen on Discord or send an email to social@wooting.nl, share a bit about your ideas and how we can support you. We will share some raw access to the values. We’re still working on the accessibility for others.

hey there. is it just me, or does the Wooting One sometimes register wrong key inputs? feel like more often than not while typing it would act like the windows/system key was pressed and my input suddenly gets directed to the start menu. this never happened to me with any other keyboard before, that is why i am wondering. and this is meant as an example. sometimes i find it inputs keys that arent even close to the ones i meant to stroke, or the order is mixed up (i am a fast typer).
anyone has any similar experiences?

I really love where you guys have been going for this keyboard, and the whole idea of pressure response, but I need a numpad, the tenkeyless is just not for me, but I’ll keep checking back hoping that someday you add one to you product list so that I can purchase one of these cutting edge keyboards.

How hard is the keyboard to take apart for cleaning reasons? I know most “gaming” mechanical keyboards hide screws and sometimes plastic clips so you can not or even put warranty stickers over screws. Is this the case with the Wooting One/Two keyboard?